The Sydney Swans will start their season and feature in the VFLW competition from this weekend. 

For the first time, Sydney and the GWS GIANTS will feature in five rebel VFLW matches in 2024, playing against AFLW-aligned clubs from Rounds 3-7 of the competition. 

Sydney Swans AFLW senior coach Scott Gowans says the VFLW competition will provide an opportunity to play competitive football heading into the AFLW season, with the side approaching the games with a competitive mindset. 

"Part of our strategy is we want to win everything we play in," Gowans said. 

"I use this analogy with the girls, that if there's a bus queue, we want to be at the front of the queue. We want to win everything we do and I think that mindset will hold us in good stead as we grow."

"We want to win, that's what we want to do, but we've also got a couple of things we want to improve on so we're going to try that this week, see how that goes and then build from there," Gowans added.

"It's all about improvements, people playing secondary roles and all that sort of stuff."

Gallery: Swans prepare for VFLW

The Sydney Swans will feature in the VFLW from this weekend. For the first time, we will feature in five rebel VFLW matches in 2024, playing against AFLW-aligned clubs from Rounds 3-7. See some of the photos as the players returned for training.
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Matches will be fixtured against AFLW standalone and aligned clubs between Rounds 3 to 7 and be played in Melbourne and Sydney while Premiership points and percentage will apply for all matches involving the Giants and Swans.

We will play Western Bulldogs and Box Hill Hawks in Melbourne as well as home games against North Melbourne, Casey Demons and Collingwood.

"It'll be a great competition because we've only done match simulation and then the rest of our training has really been drill based and scenario based," Gowans said.

"They're probably a little bit more prepared than we are, but I think that's good. We will get straight into it on Saturday and the Bulldogs played pretty well last week against Casey and had a good win so it'll be a good contest and I think that's what you want."

Sydney fans will be happy to see one of the five matches fixtured as a double-header with the VFL team when they take on the Box Hill Hawks at Box Hill City Oval in Round 6, while the three home games will be held at Tramway Oval.

Sydney Swans VFLW fixture
R3 v Western Bulldogs, Whitten Oval, VIC - Saturday, April 6 1pm
R4 v North Melb, Henson Park - Saturday, April 13 1:05pm
R5 v Casey Demons, Blacktown International Sports Park- Saturday, April 20 1:05pm
R6 v Box Hill, Box Hill City Oval - Sunday, April 28 3:35pm
R7 v Collingwood, Tramway Oval - Saturday, May 4 12pm

All matches in the 2024 rebel VFLW season will be live streamed free via the AFL website, AFL Live Official App and VFL App.

The 2024 NAB AFLW Season will commence during the final week of August, with opening round set to coincide with the AFL season's pre-finals bye. The countdown to the side's official pre-season begins on Monday, June 3 but players have begun returning on their own accord to begin their preparations ahead of the 2024 season.

"We've been training really hard. We've done about six or seven weeks now and we're really dialling into what we wanted to improve on from last year," Gowans said.

"I think having that space over the Christmas break just to have a think and strategise on what we wanted to improve on, now we get the opportunity to sort of do it against an opposition, which is really nice."

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